


The White Lady

by Isis



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Detectives, Gen, Human Roach, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Yuletide Treat, based on an actual game quest, but only vaguely spoilery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-21 07:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: I roll down the window of Geralt’s crappy beater.  “Can I help you?”She looks startled at first, then smiles.  Probably surprised to see a friendly face in this part of town. “I’m looking for a Mister Geralt of Rivia,” she says tentatively.  “He’s a detective?”“He’s my boss,” I say.  “In there.  Long white hair, lots of scars, can’t miss him.  Don’t mind the whores.”





	The White Lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hakuen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakuen/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Белая Дама](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554451) by [Rumandsprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumandsprite/pseuds/Rumandsprite)



> The role of Roach in this fic is played by [Susie of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Alex Borstein)](https://www.goldderby.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/alex-borstein-marvelous-mrs-maisel.jpg?w=620&h=360&crop=1).

I put the Novigrad News on the seat next to me and watch through the windshield as a woman walks up to the steps of the Rosemary and Thyme. She’s got a lined, weathered face, and her simple gray apron dress suggests she’s a farmer, come in to the big city of Novigrad to do her market day errands. Though what errands brought her to the Glory Lane district, I can’t imagine. 

Clearly neither can she, ‘cause she stands at the base of the steps for a while, looking up at the door as though considering whether she really wants to go in. Not that I can blame her. The Rosemary and Thyme has a reputation, and that reputation is the kind that attracts strutting young bucks with crowns to spend. The only women likely to be in the joint are the kind who would take those crowns for twenty minutes on their backs. She’d be as out of place as Geralt’s crappy beater would be at the Great Erasmus Vegelbud Memorial Derby. 

So I roll down the window of Geralt’s crappy beater. “Can I help you?”

She looks startled at first, then smiles. Probably surprised to see a friendly face in this part of town. “I’m looking for a Mister Geralt of Rivia,” she says tentatively. “He’s a detective?”

“He’s my boss,” I say. “In there. Long white hair, lots of scars, can’t miss him. Don’t mind the whores.” She nods her thanks and goes up the steps, and I go back to the news. Well, I pretend to read the news, anyway. Because I can’t help but wonder what business a farmwife would have with a private investigator. 

Don’t need to wonder long, because twenty minutes later, I hear Geralt’s distinctive whistle. Working for him for the past few years must have gotten into my skull, or maybe it’s some kind of supernatural woo-woo magic, because as soon as I hear that whistle, I’m there. Doesn’t matter how far away I am, either; it seems like I hear it no matter what, and if I’m not all that close, well, I just step on the gas. 

I jump out of the car and hold open the door, and my boss slides into the back seat. “Farcorners, Roach. Got a job.”

I look around for the woman, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Must have gone on to the market square. “Very good, Mr. Geralt,” I say, closing the door, and then I go around to the driver’s door and get in. The car starts on the second try, and I head for Farcorners.

My name, by the way, isn’t actually Roach. That was the name of Geralt’s first driver. Geralt’s rather set in his ways, and he’s got a lot on his mind with all his investigating, so whenever his driver quits – or leaves his employ feet-first, which has happened in the past, and I hope it doesn’t happen to me – he gets a new driver, he doesn’t bother learning her name, just calls her Roach. (And yes, it’s always _her_. Zoltan says it’s because Geralt thinks women are naturally better drivers. Dandelion says it’s because Geralt just likes being around women.)

I corrected him about my name the first few times, but it didn’t take, so I gave up. And really, I don’t mind being called Roach. The coin’s good, and there’s a lot of downtime, so I get to read the Novigrad News from front to back, and even sometimes the Oxenfurt Times. Geralt’s car’s a piece of shit, but I tinker with it now and again – when a big contract pays off he’ll toss me some crowns for an upgrade – and I’m proud to say we didn’t do all that badly at the Great Erasmus Vegelbud Memorial Derby last year.

“She’s a widow,” says Geralt as I drive him across the Glory Gate bridge. He has a habit of talking to me about his cases, though he doesn’t expect me to do more than say “uh-huh” at intervals, so maybe it’s just that he finds it useful to run over the specifics of his cases out loud, and I just happen to be there. “Hired some boys to harvest her crops. They went out into her field and never came back.”

I hold up my side of the bargain. “Uh-huh.”

“Not the only ones, either. Two Farcorners farmers have disappeared recently.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Third farmer didn’t even make it as far as his field. Saw something that scared him so much he turned around and ran back to his house.”

“Yeah?” I say. (Sometimes I change it up a little.)

“He was a gibbering wreck, she said. Muttering something about a lady dressed in white. Hasn’t been right in the head since.”

“Huh,” I say, but that seems to be the end of the story, as Geralt looks out the window and doesn’t say anything more.

We pass between the run-down shacks where Novigrad’s nonhumans live, the elves and dwarves who get turned away when they try to buy a place in the city proper no matter how much coin they have. Soon we’re surrounded by open fields, which gives me an excellent view of the tall tower of Drahim Castle, which is where I hope we aren’t going. Fortunately, Geralt taps me on the shoulder well before we reach the low stone wall that marks the start of the castle grounds, and I pull over by a stand of trees that separates two fields.

I put it in park, the motor lurching in idle. “Want me to keep her running?”

He shakes his head as he gets out of the car. “Just keep an eye on me, Roach. And give a shout if you see any ladies dressed in white.”

I kill the engine, then get out and lean against the fender, pretending to read the business section, as I watch Geralt over the edge of the News. He’s got his methods, though sometimes they’re a little hard to figure out. Apparently he trained at some place called Wolf Academy – at least, that’s what I saw on his credentials the one time I got a glimpse – somewhere up north. 

Anyway, he stops at the edge of the field and takes a big sniff. Like he’s smelling the air. Then he bends down and smooths away the grasses, and from the way his back stiffens I know he must have seen some footprints. I gotta say, that man has a knack for finding footprints. Even on cobblestone, which you’d think wouldn’t hold any sort of impression. He just sniffs the air, and bends down, and it’s like he sees something nobody else does.

That’s what happens here. He strides across the field at an angle, heading for a small copse, then stops abruptly and crouches to look at something on the ground. When he stands, he’s got his notebook in his hands, and from the way he walks slowly around a person-sized space, scribbling in his notebook, I know he’s found a body. Then he sniffs the air again, walks to another spot following footprints only he can see, and does the whole routine over again. 

The third time he starts loping across the field, my heart takes a dive, because he’s heading in the direction of Drahim Castle. See, Drahim Castle’s what you might call a ruin – if you’re being polite. Belonged to a fellow named Prince Adrien, right up until he committed suicide. Ever since, it’s been abandoned, slowly deteriorating here on the outskirts of Novigrad. Its piles of tumbled rocks and its ivy-covered stone tower angling up into the sky are an eerie sight, and not one I was particularly excited about seeing up close.

I toss the News into the car, wondering if I should jump in and drive up to the castle’s driveway and meet him there, or if I should just leg it toward him. A quick getaway might be important, though, so I get into the car. 

That’s when I notice the gun in the back seat.

Geralt always carries two pieces. One is a standard-issue gun, like the cops carry, and he has used it on several occasions to put holes in a fairly large number of bandits and thieves. But then he’s got another one for those special cases. Or should I say, those special perps. The kind that need bullets made of silver to put holes in them.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause I used to feel the same way. Never put much stock in talk of monsters; sure, someone says they saw a werewolf, but it’s really just someone’s very big dog that got out on the night of a full moon. But I’ve been working for Geralt of Rivia for a long time now, and I’ve seen some pretty strange things. If whoever killed the men in the field – this so-called White Lady – is living in that ruin of a castle, I reckon she might be the kind of strange that needs the silver bullets from the gun that is currently sitting on the back seat of Geralt’s car.

So I get in the car and fuck me, I should have left the engine on, because it takes three attempts before it starts up, despite my loud and inventive cussing. My foot bangs the accelerator pedal down to the floor and I book it the short distance to the turn-off, then hang a right, barely managing to keep the tires on the road, and then I slam on the brakes just as I pass through the gate in the stone wall at the entrance. It doesn’t take me more than a couple of minutes.

Which is fifteen seconds too long. Because as the piece-of-crap jalopy skids to a halt, I see Geralt’s white hair disappearing behind the closing front door.

I hammer a useless fist on the steering wheel and mutter “Shit!” My boss is in that creepy tower without his special silver-bullet gun, which must have slid out of its holster when he got out of the car, and it’s my fault, because I should have changed the spark plugs last week, and then this crappy piece of shit would have started on the first try, and I would have gotten there in time, damn it.

I look at the ruin of Drahim Castle. I look at the shiny piece in the back seat.

Thing is, I’m just a driver. A top-notch driver, okay, but a driver. I’m not a private investigator, like Geralt is. I don’t have a license to carry a gun, and I wouldn’t know how to shoot one if I did. 

The parking brake’s on, but I leave the motor running. It ain’t smooth, but it’s running, and I drum my fingers on the wheel anxiously, my nervous gaze darting back and forth between the silver-bullet gun and the castle’s imposing wooden door. It’s the middle of the day, almost dead noon, and you’d think that would make the crumbling castle look less like a haunted house, but you’d be wrong. It looks scary and ominous, looming there over me and Geralt’s crappy beater, and I finally reach back and take the piece from the back seat and turn it over in my hands.

The gun is heavy. It’s heavy and gleaming and it’s in my hands, not in Geralt’s holster, and I am on the verge of panic when I hear a noise that cuts through my terror and despair like a clean sharp blade.

Geralt’s whistling for me.

I don’t question how I can hear it, through the heavy wooden door of the castle, through the metal cage of the car, through all that space separating me from him. I hear his whistle and I push open the door and I leap out and run to the castle and put my shoulder to the door, which opens with a soft creak. Behind it is a hallway, lit by the noonday sun streaming in through the open windows and the fallen-in roof, and at the end of the hallway there is a woman dressed in white.

Her back’s toward me, so she doesn’t see me, and I can’t see her face, just her hair, which is covered by a lacy white veil. But I can see an arm wrapped around her back, embracing her gently, a wide hand splayed across the small of her back. I can see the top of Geralt’s white-haired head, bent to hers, and I know he must be kissing her. Like Dandelion said: Geralt always did have a thing for women. 

And I see his right arm extended out to the side, his hand open, and I’m just a driver, but you can’t be a good driver without solid spatial awareness and decent hand-eye coordination. 

I’m a fucking good driver. I toss that silver-bullet gun. It rotates three times as it arcs through the air. Then it smacks gently, perfectly, right into Geralt’s outstretched hand.

There is a sudden blur of motion. Geralt swivels the White Lady sideways against the wall, and for one moment I can see her ghastly face, parchment skin and dead bone and grubs squirming in and out of her empty eye-sockets, but then he jams the pistol up under her chin and pulls the trigger, and the silver bullet spatters what’s left of her skull all over the corridor, and her dirty white dress falls to the stone floor. There’s no blood, only dust, and only sound for one long moment is the echo of the gunshot in the empty halls of Drahim Castle.

“Thanks, Roach,” says Geralt. He slips the gun back into its holster, where it belongs, and then pulls out a knife and cuts the horrible swollen tongue from the creature that was pretending to be a woman. The grisly trophy is to prove to the farmwife that he’s killed her, to get his payment. I’ll be happy when it’s stashed in the boss’s room at the Rosemary and Thyme and not hanging from his belt.

“Yeah,” I say. “I left the motor running this time.”

He nods. “Let’s go.” 

I follow him out of the ruin and open the car door for him, and he slides into the backseat. I get into the front and disengage the parking brake.

“Giddy-up, Roach,” he says, and I drive us back to the Rosemary and Thyme.


End file.
